The workings of the human brain

grahamg

grahamg

Old codger
Location
South of Manchester, UK
This is a subject where I believe our greatest scientists and medics confess there is very little known about the human mind or brain, and much is speculation, (many things may never be known I think they suggest).

This is an old study into the subject, that did reveal a few aspects of the workings of the brain:

"Communication between the two hemispheres of the brain is made possible by the bundles of axons, or commissures, that connect them. The largest of these bundles, known as the corpus callosum, consists of about 200 million axons running from one hemisphere to the other.

The absence of major deficits in animals with a severed corpus callosum gave neurosurgeons the idea of performing this operation on certain patients whose frequent, severe epileptic attacks were ruining their lives. In some of these patients, the epileptic focus was located in only one hemisphere, so this operation could successfully prevent the attacks from propagating to the other hemisphere. Having had this operation, these “split-brain” individuals could go back to enjoying their lives; as with the animals in Sperry’s experiments, their day-to-day behaviour was practically unaffected by the separation of their brains into two halves.

The renowned American neuropsychologist Michael Gazzaniga, who began his career working with Roger Sperry, has developed several devices for analyzing functional differences between the two hemispheres in split-brain patients. The idea behind these devices is to deliver stimuli in such a way that they reach only one hemisphere, and then to observe how this hemisphere manages to process these stimuli on its own.

To study language, Gazzaniga asked his subjects to focus on a point at the centre of a screen. He then projected images, words, and phrases onto the screen, to the left or right of this point. By flashing these items quickly enough that the subjects’ eyes had no time to move, Gazzaniga was able to “talk” to just one of the hemispheres at a time. Information projected in the subjects’ left visual field was received by the right hemisphere, while information projected in the right visual field was received by the left.

The subjects could easily repeat numbers or words or describe images projected in their right visual field, because the left hemisphere, which received and processed this information, is the dominant hemisphere for language. Similarly, when asked to close their eyes and feel an object with their right hand, they could describe the object readily."

https://thebrain.mcgill.ca/flash/capsules/experience_bleu06.html

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It's fascinating!
I'm surprised I don't walk at an angle because I'm so right brained! hahaha!

I think spiritual perception, which is always ahead of reason, will be studied
in future generations .
I'm deeply interested in the mind/ soul connection. This will be studied
in depth, IMO.
 
Years ago, at the zoo, (with my children) there were lines of closed boxes on posts with hand sized holes in them. Visitors were to reach in each hole and tell what was the object inside. At first the idea of sticking my hand in gave me the creeps. lol But I reached in each one & going by feel & imagination, I was able to accurately guess the items. Seashell........& so on. I was using both my brain hemispheres?
Left hemisphere analytical, right hemisphere creative?
 

More work trying to uncover the secrets of our brains:
https://www.ninds.nih.gov/Disorders/Patient-Caregiver-Education/Know-Your-Brain

"The brain is the most complex part of the human body. This three-pound organ is the seat of intelligence, interpreter of the senses, initiator of body movement, and controller of behavior. Lying in its bony shell and washed by protective fluid, the brain is the source of all the qualities that define our humanity. The brain is the crown jewel of the human body.

For centuries, scientists and philosophers have been fascinated by the brain, but until recently they viewed the brain as nearly incomprehensible. Now, however, the brain is beginning to relinquish its secrets. Scientists have learned more about the brain in the last 10 years than in all previous centuries because of the accelerating pace of research in neurological and behavioral science and the development of new research techniques." (BREAK)

Some Key Neurotransmitters at Work​

"Neurotransmitters are chemicals that brain cells use to talk to each other. Some neurotransmitters make cells more active (called excitatory) while others block or dampen a cell's activity (called inhibitory).

Acetylcholine is an excitatory neurotransmitter because it generally makes cells more excitable. It governs muscle contractions and causes glands to secrete hormones. Alzheimer’s disease, which initially affects memory formation, is associated with a shortage of acetylcholine.

Glutamate is a major excitatory neurotransmitter. Too much glutamate can kill or damage neurons and has been linked to disorders including Parkinson's disease, stroke, seizures, and increased sensitivity to pain.

GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid) is an inhibitory neurotransmitter that helps control muscle activity and is an important part of the visual system. Drugs that increase GABA levels in the brain are used to treat epileptic seizures and tremors in patients with Huntington’s disease.

Serotonin is a neurotransmitter that constricts blood vessels and brings on sleep. It is also involved in temperature regulation. Low levels of serotonin may cause sleep problems and depression, while too much serotonin can lead to seizures.

Dopamine is an inhibitory neurotransmitter involved in mood and the control of complex movements. The loss of dopamine activity in some portions of the brain leads to the muscular rigidity of Parkinson’s disease. Many medications used to treat behavioral disorders work by modifying the action of dopamine in the brain."
 
More on the mind: https://www.mindful.org/mind-vs-brain/

"I fell afoul of the no-mind rule last year during a talk I gave in Salt Lake City on neuroplasticity—the ability of the adult brain to change its structure and function in response to outside stimuli as well as internal activity. I was talking about mind changing brain, a possibility that intrigues scientists who have investigated the power and effects of mental training, including mindfulness. I used examples such as people with obsessive-compulsive disorder practicing mindfulness to approach their thoughts differently, with the result that the brain region whose overactivity caused their disorder quieted down. Ta da: mind changing brain.

Not so fast, said one audience member. Why talk about something so imprecise, even spooky, as mind? Why can’t the explanation for the OCD patients be that one form of brain activity (that taking place during mindfulness) affected another (the OCD-causing activity)? Why do we need mind talk?

Well, we need mind talk because although most neuroscientists reject the idea of a mind different from brain, most civilians embrace the distinction. This competing view of things gets expressed in the real world in stark and startling ways. Take, for example, how the mind-brain dichotomy can play out in the criminal justice system. Neuroscience holds that
wrong with, say, insulin secretion, it’s because something has gone wrong with the pancreas). We can probably all agree that criminal assault and downloading child pornography both count as something “going wrong” with behavior. Yet in these and other cases, judges presented with evidence that the behavior had a biological basis have meted out more lenient sentences than in cases where no such evidence was presented.

To which neuroscientists reply, are you out of your mind? Why are you relying on such a distinction? What else is behavior but the result of brain biology? Yet the fact that criminals are treated more harshly if their mind (motives, anger, antisocial feelings…) made them do it than if their brain (aberrant activity patterns, pathological circuitry…) did shows just how deeply average folks believe that mind and brain are distinct.

The Long Standing Debate​

This dualism gets at a profound philosophical issue that has divided scholars for decades: what is the most productive and helpful level of explanation for mental activity? When do we go too far in reducing mental matters to physically observable activity?
When do we go too far in reducing mental matters to physically observable activity? Is it more illuminating, for instance, to explain why Teresa loves Dave by invoking their personalities and histories and tastes, or their brain neurons? Consider trying to explain confirmation bias, in which people remember examples that support their point of view—“You never take out the garbage!”—and forget counterexamples. Is it more illuminating to explain it as the result of the human need to shore up our beliefs or by invoking synapses and neurochemicals?

One case for mind talk is that we have access to our mind. We can recognize and describe what we know, remember, and think. We do not have access to our brain: we cannot tell which regions (my hippocampus? my anterior cingulate?) are active during particular activities."
 
grahamg said:

The Long Standing Debate​

This dualism gets at a profound philosophical issue that has divided scholars for decades: what is the most productive and helpful level of explanation for mental activity? When do we go too far in reducing mental matters to physically observable activity?
When do we go too far in reducing mental matters to physically observable activity? Is it more illuminating, for instance, to explain why Teresa loves Dave by invoking their personalities and histories and tastes, or their brain neurons? Consider trying to explain confirmation bias, in which people remember examples that support their point of view—“You never take out the garbage!”—and forget counterexamples. Is it more illuminating to explain it as the result of the human need to shore up our beliefs or by invoking synapses and neurochemicals?

One case for mind talk is that we have access to our mind. We can recognize and describe what we know, remember, and think. We do not have access to our brain: we cannot tell which regions (my hippocampus? my anterior cingulate?) are active during particular activities."
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(y)(y)
 
grahamg said:
This is a subject where I believe our greatest scientists and medics confess there is very little known about the human mind or brain, and much is speculation, (many things may never be known I think they suggest).

This is an old study into the subject, that did reveal a few aspects of the workings of the brain:

"Communication between the two hemispheres of the brain is made possible by the bundles of axons, or commissures, that connect them. The largest of these bundles, known as the corpus callosum, consists of about 200 million axons running from one hemisphere to the other.

The absence of major deficits in animals with a severed corpus callosum gave neurosurgeons the idea of performing this operation on certain patients whose frequent, severe epileptic attacks were ruining their lives. In some of these patients, the epileptic focus was located in only one hemisphere, so this operation could successfully prevent the attacks from propagating to the other hemisphere. Having had this operation, these “split-brain” individuals could go back to enjoying their lives; as with the animals in Sperry’s experiments, their day-to-day behaviour was practically unaffected by the separation of their brains into two halves.

The renowned American neuropsychologist Michael Gazzaniga, who began his career working with Roger Sperry, has developed several devices for analyzing functional differences between the two hemispheres in split-brain patients. The idea behind these devices is to deliver stimuli in such a way that they reach only one hemisphere, and then to observe how this hemisphere manages to process these stimuli on its own.

To study language, Gazzaniga asked his subjects to focus on a point at the centre of a screen. He then projected images, words, and phrases onto the screen, to the left or right of this point. By flashing these items quickly enough that the subjects’ eyes had no time to move, Gazzaniga was able to “talk” to just one of the hemispheres at a time. Information projected in the subjects’ left visual field was received by the right hemisphere, while information projected in the right visual field was received by the left.

The subjects could easily repeat numbers or words or describe images projected in their right visual field, because the left hemisphere, which received and processed this information, is the dominant hemisphere for language. Similarly, when asked to close their eyes and feel an object with their right hand, they could describe the object readily."

https://thebrain.mcgill.ca/flash/capsules/experience_bleu06.html

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You're right, Graham; this is a very old finding. :) Another thing that's even more amazing regarding the hemispheres was the finding that in children the loss of one of the hemispheres doesn't cause that much of a problem. Because of the plasticity (neurons rerouting) of the brain, the working hemisphere can take over all of the duties of the other one. The reference is for a study done rather recently, but this has been known for many years beginning with a boy who ended up in this situation and surprised everyone.

https://www.livescience.com/hemisphere-removed-brain-plasticity.html
 
grahamg said:
More on the mind: https://www.mindful.org/mind-vs-brain/
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grahamg said:
The Long Standing Debate
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grahamg said:
This dualism gets at a profound philosophical issue that has divided scholars for decades: what is the most productive and helpful level of explanation for mental activity? When do we go too far in reducing mental matters to physically observable activity?
When do we go too far in reducing mental matters to physically observable activity? Is it more illuminating, for instance, to explain why Teresa loves Dave by invoking their personalities and histories and tastes, or their brain neurons? Consider trying to explain confirmation bias, in which people remember examples that support their point of view—“You never take out the garbage!”—and forget counterexamples. Is it more illuminating to explain it as the result of the human need to shore up our beliefs or by invoking synapses and neurochemicals?

One case for mind talk is that we have access to our mind. We can recognize and describe what we know, remember, and think. We do not have access to our brain: we cannot tell which regions (my hippocampus? my anterior cingulate?) are active during particular activities."
Click to expand...
The general public may not have access, but those with an fMRI do!

Because of the fMRI scientists (you need plenty of funding for this sort of research) can tell us what's going on when we feel "love." Because of the ability to probe individual neurons, neurological researchers can tell with great specificity which neurons are firing. Which neurotransmitters are being released is also something that can be measured.

As I see it, the only question is "Which came first -- the attraction or the electrochemistry?" :) That may or may not be known; I don't have the answer, but my guess is that the electrochemistry came first. Now, what triggered that (if I'm right) is another question.
 
This is why I'm mentioning the heart of the soul.
"Love" is from the absolute, in the soul.
not the brain, which is in the relative, the manifest field of creation. the continuously changing.
The absolute Being is outside of the physical science. The complete reality of the mind is
in the pure consciousness
The absolute and the relative are two aspects of the eternal Being.
 
We've all probably heard the statement "The brain is simply a place where chemical reactions take place"(?).
I think that view is perhaps waning, (though undoubtedly true in some sense), as there is a reason why we think as we do, not just chemical reactions, or the result of a "chemical imbalance" when things go wrong.
 
Hallo grahamg, interesting subject “the brain”. I believe it is true to say the “workings of the human brain”are ongoing research. But I say this, if it interests you. All the emotions we feel come from the Limbic System, logic, judgment, reasoning, impulse control, love etc. The main organ affected by love is actually the brain, that is where everything starts.
 
Shero said:
Hallo grahamg, interesting subject “the brain”. I believe it is true to say the “workings of the human brain”are ongoing research. But I say this, if it interests you. All the emotions we feel come from the Limbic System, logic, judgment, reasoning, impulse control, love etc. The main organ affected by love is actually the brain, that is where everything starts.
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I read yesterday some comments about the millions of nerve cells located around the human gut, and said to be associated with the emotions too I believe. (Will try to find link).
 
Still looking for link to comment about the gut linked to brain, but came across this very well known work by none other than Freud:

"According to Freud psychoanalytic theory, the id is the primitive and instinctual part of the mind that contains sexual and aggressive drives and hidden memories, the super-ego operates as a moral conscience, and the ego is the realistic part that mediates between the desires of the id and the super-ego."

https://www.simplypsychology.org/ps...ud psychoanalytic theory,id and the super-ego.

Freud.1.jpg
 
grahamg said:
I read yesterday some comments about the millions of nerve cells located around the human gut, and said to be associated with the emotions too I believe. (Will try to find link).
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Here we go, a couple of links to articles about the gut and brain connection:

https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/the-brain-gut-connection

"If you’ve ever “gone with your gut” to make a decision or felt “butterflies in your stomach” when nervous, you’re likely getting signals from an unexpected source: your second brain. Hidden in the walls of the digestive system, this “brain in your gut” is revolutionizing medicine’s understanding of the links between digestion, mood, health and even the way you think."

Second one:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/gut-second-brain/

"This multitude of neurons in the enteric nervous system enables us to "feel" the inner world of our gut and its contents. Much of this neural firepower comes to bear in the elaborate grind of digestion. Breaking down food, absorbing nutrients, and expelling of waste requires chemical processing, mechanical mixing and rhythmic muscle contractions that move everything on down the line.

Thus equipped with its own reflexes and senses, the second brain can control gut behavior independently of the brain, Gershon says. We likely evolved this intricate web of nerves to perform digestion and excretion "on site," rather than remotely from our brains through the middleman of the spinal cord. "The brain in the head doesn't need to get its hands dirty with the messy business of digestion, which is delegated to the brain in the gut," Gershon says. He and other researchers explain, however, that the second brain's complexity likely cannot be interpreted through this process alone."
 
Shero said:
Hallo grahamg, interesting subject “the brain”. I believe it is true to say the “workings of the human brain”are ongoing research. But I say this, if it interests you. All the emotions we feel come from the Limbic System, logic, judgment, reasoning, impulse control, love etc. The main organ affected by love is actually the brain, that is where everything starts.
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And the emotions (chemicals) have receptors throughout the body:

"They also identified the means by which emotions cause the bodywide release (and take-up) of all sorts of information-carrying molecules, often in areas with no electrical neurons. These chemicals, known as ligands (most of which fall into the giant class of chemical messengers called peptides) perform a vast range of functions. They travel through our extra-cellular fluids and hook up with specific, highly selective receptors located on cells throughout the body. Once attached, they impart molecular messages that can dramatically impact our physiological functioning at the cellular and systemic levels.

"Thanks to new imaging technologies, research scientists have now been able to demonstrate how thoughts and emotions cause distinct neuron-firing patterns within various parts of the brain. They can also observe how these patterns coincide with chemical releases and reactions throughout the body."

https://experiencelife.lifetime.life/article/emotional-biochemistry/
 
Dancing_Queen said:
And the emotions (chemicals) have receptors throughout the body:

"They also identified the means by which emotions cause the bodywide release (and take-up) of all sorts of information-carrying molecules, often in areas with no electrical neurons. These chemicals, known as ligands (most of which fall into the giant class of chemical messengers called peptides) perform a vast range of functions. They travel through our extra-cellular fluids and hook up with specific, highly selective receptors located on cells throughout the body. Once attached, they impart molecular messages that can dramatically impact our physiological functioning at the cellular and systemic levels.

"Thanks to new imaging technologies, research scientists have now been able to demonstrate how thoughts and emotions cause distinct neuron-firing patterns within various parts of the brain. They can also observe how these patterns coincide with chemical releases and reactions throughout the body."

https://experiencelife.lifetime.life/article/emotional-biochemistry/
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Very complex article, and I'm not sure I can understand what is being said very well, (I guess I'd have to check out what others who have studied this in detail have said in response). :)
 
grahamg said:
Very complex article, and I'm not sure I can understand what is being said very well, (I guess I'd have to check out what others who have studied this in detail have said in response). :)
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I was just posting it for the gist, not for all of the detail. The relevant part was in the text I wrote. :)
 
Dancing_Queen said:
I was just posting it for the gist, not for all of the detail. The relevant part was in the text I wrote. :)
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Ahhhh, with you now!

So this comment of yours, quote:
"But I say this, if it interests you. All the emotions we feel come from the Limbic System, logic, judgment, reasoning, impulse control, love etc. The main organ affected by love is actually the brain, that is where everything starts."

I'm not too worried where love comes from, as long as its there, so am happy to take your view as correct. :)
 
grahamg said:
Ahhhh, with you now!

So this comment of yours, quote:
"But I say this, if it interests you. All the emotions we feel come from the Limbic System, logic, judgment, reasoning, impulse control, love etc. The main organ affected by love is actually the brain, that is where everything starts."

I'm not too worried where love comes from, as long as its there, so am happy to take your view as correct. :)
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Yes, I was referring to this, Graham. However, I'm not saying that love comes from various parts of the body; I'm saying that there are receptors around the body for many, if not all, of the neurotransmitters associated with feelings. The neurotransmitters don't start outside of the central nervous system.
 
#grahamg, has any of your study touched on the autistic savant and what that condition says about our brains and its abilities (and inabilities). It has been a particular interest of mine for years.
 
helenbacque said:
#grahamg, has any of your study touched on the autistic savant and what that condition says about our brains and its abilities (and inabilities). It has been a particular interest of mine for years.
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Only very marginally I must admit, though it was mentioned in at least one article that scientists had learnt from some of those suffering with autism, (of differing kinds, is that right?)
 
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